This Lady Slays the Game

Mariana holds the title Lady Serenity and a fortune to go with it, and she is engaged to Luther, a cavalry general. She finds him with a courtesan from a pleasure house. The affair is the smaller injury. Luther had claimed for years that he was the man who saved her life when she was young, and he built his standing with her on that claim while what he actually wanted was her money and her rank. Mariana strikes a bargain with a stranger named Bradford: they will act as a couple in public and use it to strike back. Bradford is the Marquis of the North, and he is the man who really pulled her out of danger that night. He has loved her since without saying so. Her father objects to the match, and the Empress Dowager issues a marriage decree that has nothing to do with what either of them wants. The Second Prince, working with Luther and the courtesan, arranges a kidnapping and then a poisoning, and the two of them pick the plots apart one at a time.